Mouse nous

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Computer mice are the workhorses of our day. We pick them up, rub them across not always pristine surfaces and click and tap them constantly. If you haven't given your mouse more than a passing thought lately, perhaps it's time you did. There may be more to it than meets the eye.

Let it roam

Mice, particularly those with a rotating ball, work best on a mouse pad. The flat surface of the mouse pad ensures that the mouse has sufficient friction so the ball rolls against it. It also creates a smooth path so the mouse doesn't jump around. Whenever you clean your mouse, give your mouse pad a wipe over with some cleaner and a lint-free cloth to ensure it is clean too.

Performing tricks

Just as a mouse in a cage will perform tricks with its toys, a computer mouse has a swag of tricks up its sleeve. However, what it can do depends on the type of mouse it is - each mouse comes with its own driver software and this controls what options it has.

To see what your mouse is capable of, choose Start, Control Panel, Printers and other hardware, Mouse. What you see in this dialog is specific to your type of mouse, but some standard items should be there.

Your mouse should provide an option for left-handed use. This configures the left button as a right button and vice versa. It's a setting which will be loved by southpaws but despised by everyone else. You should also find in this dialog a way to alter the double-click speed.

This lets you configure just how close two clicks should be for them to be interpreted as a double click. This is a setting you might want to configure to a slow speed for a new computer user and for anyone for whom it is not easy to click the mouse button fast in quick succession. As people become more proficient they can adjust the speed.

Another setting which new users, and those who have trouble moving the mouse while holding the left button, will like is Click Lock. This lets you lock the mouse button into the "on" position by holding it down for a specified time. You can then perform the dragging task and concentrate on the movement only because the mouse button will be held down automatically. Click again to unlock it.

The Pointers tab lets you configure the mouse pointers which appear for various tasks. To see what is available, click the task for which you want to alter the mouse pointer then click the Browse button. You will see a number of .cur files which are static mouse pointer icons and a number of files with the .ani extension which are animated cursors.

Depending on your set-up, you may have a banana that peels, a playing piano, a galloping horse or, (falling within its own "very curious" category), a regular-shaped pointer that waves its tail. To see an animated cursor in action, select it in the list and watch it play in the preview window. As with sounds, you can configure a pointer scheme so you can save your settings and return to them at any time if someone else changes them in the meantime.

Notebook mice

If you're using a notebook computer, configuring a mouse trail can help you find a lost mouse. If you set your mouse to show a trail of small pointers behind it when it moves, when you lose the pointer you simply wiggle the mouse a bit and the trail of pointers will show you where it is.

Wheel deal

If your mouse has a wheel, many drivers allow you to configure the wheel to perform some action as you press it. In other cases you may simply be able to determine how many lines down the page it moves when you roll it. When you're in a program, don't forget that most programs support right click shortcut menus. Hold your mouse over a part of the screen and right click to open any menu which is relevant to that area of the screen. Also try rolling your mouse wheel - you will find that rolling it up or down generally moves you around the screen. Holding Control as you roll it zooms you in and out of Office program screens. Doing the same in Internet Explorer alters the font size on the screen.

Macros won't run

Moving away from mice, Word is configured by default to a high level of security so macros that you create and save in a Word file will work fine when you create them but won't work when you reopen your file. To resolve this, open Word and choose Tools, Macro, Security and choose the Medium security option. You can now opt to enable macros or not whenever you open a file which contains them.

Better sound

When using Windows Media Player, you can tweak the sound settings for better results. Click the Now Playing button and choose View, Enhancements. In the list are a number of tools, including a Graphic Equaliser and SRS WOW effects, for tweaking your sound settings. If you're using Windows Media Player with Windows XP, you can preview the new Windows Media Player v10 here.